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September 2007

September 26, 2007

Seems entirely appropriate that the producers of "The Farnsworth Invention" would put a little something on YouTube to promote the play:

Back in the days when I thought I was going to make "a movie for television about the boy who invented it," I thought the log line would be "The next great moment in television was its first." Not too far off...

September 19, 2007

The new fact-based drama The Farnsworth Invention is now in rehearsals for a start date of October 15 at the Music Box Theatre. We got a look at the testosterone-heavy cast at a meet-and-greet earlier today. Photos by Bruce Glikas for Broadway.com

Why have previews in the first place? Because you can't tell what a show is really like until you perform it in front of a paying audience and see how the viewers respond. For many years, big-ticket Broadway shows were tried out in other Eastern cities, then revised before coming to New York. In "Act One," Moss Hart tells how "Once in a Lifetime," the first play he wrote with George S. Kaufman, was rewritten twice, once after a pair of disastrous tryouts in Atlantic City and Brooklyn and again after an iffy preview in Philadelphia. But as budgets soared, out-of-town previews grew prohibitively expensive, and now most shows are "previewed" on Broadway for three or four weeks prior to their official opening nights.

September 13, 2007

Full casting has been announced for the world premiere of Aaron Sorkin's new play about the advent of television, The Farnsworth Invention, starring Hank Azaria as David Sarnoff and Jimmi Simpon as Philo T. Farnsworth. The play will begin previews at Broadway's Music Box Theatre on October 15 and open on November 14.

September 09, 2007

Today's New York Times takes note of the building interest in Aaron Sorkin's play coming to Broadway, heralding the show as this coming season's equivalent of the highly acclaimed "Frost/Nixon:"

The most notable entry in the field, “The Farnsworth Invention,” comes from the television writer Aaron Sorkin, his first play since “A Few Good Men” in 1989. The subject speaks to Mr. Sorkin’s fascination with process, with the conflict centering on the feud between a particularly gifted young student, Philo T. Farnsworth, who invented the first electronic television system in the 1920s, and David Sarnoff, who, from that seed, fertilized a media empire. Both men had utopian visions for television’s potential, but the play deals as well with all the quotidian matters beyond the scope of their idealism: patent law and economics, science and the repercussions of the Wall Street crash. The play, co-produced by Steven Spielberg, will open on Broadway at the Music Box Theater on Nov. 14.

September 07, 2007

Before we all settle back this evening in front of our wide-screen, High Definition flat-panel video display to watch the latest in blockbusting home entertaiment; or before we cozy up to our computers to witness the world's latest hi-jinks via YouTube, it might be constructive to remember how it all began: in a makeshift loft in San Francisco, on September 7, 1927, when a young inventor named Philo T. Farnsworth successfully transmitted the image of a simple straight line from the bottom of one empty bottle to the bottom of another -- as depicted in this newsclip from the recreation celebrating the 50th Anniversary of that event in 1977:

From this humble beginning the greatest advance in the history of human communications (before the Internet, I guess...) was launched.

While we're at it, here is the footage from the Emmy Awards nod to Mrs. Farnsworth on the occasion of the 75th Anniversary in 2002: